


Kirkwall Nights

by dread_thehalfhanded



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age II
Genre: F/M, Fluff, hashtag mage rights, i can't believe this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-03
Updated: 2019-03-03
Packaged: 2019-11-08 09:50:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 932
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17979092
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dread_thehalfhanded/pseuds/dread_thehalfhanded
Summary: It is a simple question. But hard to ask.





	Kirkwall Nights

They are only small things: the golden strands twisted between her fingers, or the sprawl of his legs across her bed in sleep. Hawke doesn’t have any words for how those things makes her feel, but it reminds her of crying.

The house, her house—it is strange to think it—creaks gently around them in the pre-dawn silence.

_Please stay._

It is one thing to stand with him against the city guard, or the chantry, or the knight-commander, but such another to coax him from his clinic and into her bed. Always some orphan or foolish elf, a merchant with too much time on his hands or a pirate who has put in at one too many ports. Healing, or teaching others to heal, or scribbling away at his manuscript, he never stops.

_When will you ever learn to rest?_

Many nights he did not come. Other nights he came late, eyes dark circles, bloodstains under his fingernails, shedding his coat and falling into her bed without preamble. On rare occasions, he would arrive before midnight, clean and something like playful. But as Meredith’s grip on the city tightened, those nights were far gone.

_If I got a cat, would he come more easily?_

She ran her dark hand over his pale one, over his side, over the curve of his slender thigh.

“Go to sleep, love,” said the pillow on his side of the bed.

She hummed and rested her hand in the groove of his hip, marveling at the way that it fit there, just so.

“With all the nights you and I spend running these streets, can I not spend one happy we’re in here, and not out there?”

The tangled mess of hair on Ander’s pillow shifted, and he rolled over to face her, wrapping his arm around her waist, eyes still closed.

“Mhm,” he said into her neck.

She pushes his hair back, kisses him, and is greeted with one sleepy blue eye.

“Good morning, then,” he says, a note of reluctance in his rough half-waking voice, “I see we are awake.”

Hawke skates a palm down his side again, laughing in her throat.

“We? That’s a bold claim.”

The other eye opens, and he blinks at her in mock accusation.

“Bold Champion, it is ever difficult not to follow your illustrious example-“

Her hearty laughter cuts him off, and he subsides into a small, pointed smile, watching her. Head thrown back, totally unconscious of the hour.

The joke fades, and her face softens again, looking at him.

“Would you…” she trails off, not sure suddenly how to ask, or what it is she wants. _I want you,_ she thinks. _Just you. With me. Beside me. Always._

He cocks his head, now fully awake and curious. His nest of blonde hair is all matted on one side where he has slept on it, and she reaches out with one heavy, scarred hand to touch it.

 _She can be so gentle, when she tries,_ he thinks.

“Would you,” she begins again, “would you stay?”

The startled, scared-deer look leaps into his eyes, and she struggles for the right words. Eloquence has never been her forte. And frankly communication is easier with her axe.

“I mean, I know you’re here all the time already and you have your work. But it’s not… safe, down there. And you work so late. I worry about you, in the streets so late at night.”

The look softens, and he takes her hand.

“You are the last person I expected to start lecturing about safety.”

“It starts with you, and it might end with you, so don’t tell Varric,” she says. “But I like having you here. With me.”

Her voice goes softer, and she suddenly didn’t sound like most people’s idea of the Champion of Kirkwall. She sounded soft, unsure.

“I love having you. Bring your things next time, if you like. There’s room for us both, here… I’d like to know you’re safe. Every night.”

Anders sighs, and looks down at the blankets. Red, like her silk jacket. Red like the sigil in the hall. Red like the city.

Misreading the expression in his eyes, she is quick to cover her tracks, “I mean you don’t have to, I understand if—“

He cuts her off, still staring at the covers, “I would not endanger you needlessly.”

“Not any more than I am already... and we see how well that’s worked out for everyone.”

He meets her eyes, and she sees the want there. And the fear.

“I write a lot,” he adds, halfheartedly. “Late. I might get ink on your sheets.”

She glares, demanding a serious answer.

Anders sighs.

 “I would like nothing better than to stand by your side, day and night.”

“If you truly want that,” he adds, softly.

A small smile twitches at the corners of her lips, and she raises an eyebrow.

“Well, you don’t have to _stand_ …”

Anders sighs with the air of man who has put up with far worse jokes from the woman he loves, and pulls her into a rough kiss, feeling the warm, rebellious life in her soften against his touch. Her giggle subsides into his mouth and he runs his hand across her face, her cheekbones, her firm jawline, before she rolls on top of him and kisses him hard, hard into the bed.

He is not half done being kissed senseless when she pulls away, looking down and very seriously into his eyes.

“So you’ll stay?”

He touches her cheek with the back of his hand.

“I will stay.”


End file.
